Читать книгу Fundamentals of Pharmacology for Children's Nurses - Группа авторов - Страница 27

Within paediatric environments care may be provided for CYP across a wide age range, from birth (possibly premature) to 16 years or potentially older depending on the clinical environment and the needs of the young person. Calculating medicine doses can be complicated as they can be very small doses in neonates and babies, requiring accurate calculation skills. Even a small miscalculation resulting in an overdose can have a severe or life‐threatening effect due to the prematurity of the infant’s development and the body’s ability to process the medication. Barber (2013) identified that children are three times more likely to receive a medication error than an adult due to the complexity of the calculations required, a misplaced decimal point and the complexity of calculating the individual dosage for each CYP based on weight, height or surface area. Within neonatal care this risk is higher due to the size of the neonates and the complexity of calculations.